Nothing, not even a request from Ben Hur and Shakespeare, would stop the Minister for Arts from ensuring that Government policy was implemented, Mr O'Donoghue insisted in the Dáil. Marie O'Halloran reports.
He rejected Opposition amendments to the Arts Bill, one of whose provisions empowers the Minister to direct the Arts Council to comply with Government policies.
Fine Gael's spokesman Mr Jimmy Deenihan claimed this would give the Minister of the day "extraordinary powers" to intervene in the arts and "will lead to a lot of conflict in the future".
A basic principle enshrined in previous legislation to keep politics and the State at "arm's length" was being removed and would lead to more political interference.
However, Mr O'Donoghue said: "If Ben Hur arrived in here on a chariot with Shakespeare at his side and asked me to change this provision, I would not do so. If politicians do not trust themselves, they cannot expect the public to trust them."
It was incumbent on the Minister to ensure policies were implemented. There was nothing wrong with that, and "I make no apology to anyone for that".
Mr O'Donoghue has dropped a plan by his predecessor, Ms Síle de Valera, to establish a standing committee on traditional arts which was a source of division among those in the sector.
He said that "for many years, let me be quite plain about that, there has been no coherent policy on the traditional arts and they have been inadequately funded. It is of immense importance that there is a coherent strategy for the traditional arts and that this strategy is financed." That would be done through the provision on Government policy.
He did not accept that allowing the Government to make broad policies on the use of funds it provided "in some way involves inappropriate influence on the arts".
Nobody was suggesting that he or any Minister should be able to tell artists what they should produce or how they should interpret their art or what political bias would advantage them in terms of funding. "There is nothing in the Bill which comes anywhere near any of these things."
They were copperfastening the independence of the Arts Council in individual funding decisions.
Labour's arts spokesman Mr Jack Wall said there should be "no grey area" on this issue.
A minister should not be able to give directives to the Arts Council "without a facility for the public to question those directives through their public representatives".
Mr Donie Cassidy (FF, Westmeath) hit out at the "lack of funding and support by all governments for Irish art in recent years" which was "nothing short of a disgrace". Yet nobody had done more abroad for Ireland than traditional arts and traditional music.
Condemning the past performance of the Arts Council in its approach to traditional arts, he supported the new provisions, and said this issue could be returned to the Dáil in a year or so "to assess the pros and cons of the Arts Council's dealings with traditional arts in the next year".
Mr O'Donoghue also rejected an amendment from Sinn Féin's arts spokesman, Mr Aengus Ó Snodaigh, for proper recognition of the Irish language within the arts. He said that every exhibition and concert being promoted by Government could have its promotional material in Irish and English.
The Minister said, however, that it would be "wrong and self-defeating".
The legislation was so broad to "ensure that people who speak neither language will have their art forms recognised as well".
Discussion of remaining amendments is expected to continue next month.